Southern Medical Program
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| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Location | Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada |
| Campus | Reichwald Health Sciences Center at UBCO, home of the Southern Medical Program |
| Affiliations | UBC Faculty of Medicine |
| Website | Official website |
The Southern Medical Program at the University of British Columbia Okanagan is a program created by the province to increase the number of new physicians in the interior of British Columbia.
The University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine, in collaboration with the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), the University of Victoria (UVic) and the provincial government, launched its innovative, distributed medical education program in September 2004. In September 2011, another distributed site was added at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO). Medical training in BC is now distributed across four sites: the Island Medical Program (IMP) at UVic, the Northern Medical Program (NMP) at UNBC, the Southern Medical Program (SMP) at UBCO, and the Vancouver-Fraser Medical Program (VFMP) at UBC.
SMP students are based in the Reichwald Health Sciences Center at UBCO. Students at all four sites (SMP, IMP, NMP and VFMP) follow identical curriculum and are linked through sophisticated audiovisual and e-learning technology for simultaneous, interactive learning.
All students in the SMP are fully registered with the UBC Faculty of Medicine, and will receive UBC degrees. While at UBCO, students in the SMP have affiliate status, granting them access to all services provided to any UBCO student. SMP students spend the first four months of their undergraduate medical program at UBC in Vancouver and then move to Kelowna to complete their degree requirements. During the more clinical third and fourth years of the program, students have the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time in hospital and community-based clinical settings within the Interior Health Authority. After successfully completing the four-year MD undergraduate program, graduates enter residency training across Canada and beyond in one of over 50 specialty areas. Post-graduate training ranges from two to six years.
All applications for the Southern Medical Program are processed by the UBC MD Undergraduate Program Admissions office. Currently, thirty-two students are accepted into the SMP annually.
Program of study
The program consists of four years of studies:
- Year 1 and 2 - general sciences or Foundations of Medicine. All first year medical students (VFMP, IMP, NMP, SMP) attend their first term of studies at UBC in Vancouver.
- Year 3 and 4 - Clinical
- Year 4 - advanced clerkship, residency and Resident Matching Service (CaRMs) match
History
A ground-breaking ceremony was held in September 2008. The first cohort of 32 students began the program on August 29, 2011 and will graduate in June 2015.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Southern Medical Program. |
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Coordinates: 48°27′48″N 123°18′42″W / 48.463325°N 123.311751°W